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Teens Now Start With “Friends” Privacy for New Accounts; Adding the Option to Share Publicly

On Facebook, you control who you share with. That can be a single person in a message, a small group, with friends, or with the world.

Each time you share a status update, you choose the audience you want to share with. Unless you change it, the audience remains the same for future posts.

Up until today, for people aged 13 through 17, the initial audience of their first post on Facebook was set to “Friends of Friends” – with the option to change it.

Going forward, when people aged 13 through 17 sign up for an account on Facebook, the initial audience of their first post will be set to a narrower audience of “Friends.”

A new option to share more broadly

Teens are among the savviest people using social media, and whether it comes to civic engagement, activism, or their thoughts on a new movie, they want to be heard. So, starting today, people aged 13 through 17 will also have the choice to post publicly on Facebook.

While only a small fraction of teens using Facebook might choose to post publicly, this update now gives them the choice to share more broadly, just like on other social media services.

In addition, teens will be able to turn on Follow so that their public posts can be seen in people’s News Feeds. As always, followers can only see posts they are in the audience for.

These changes are designed to improve the experience for teens on Facebook. As part of this, we are also looking at ways to improve the way teens use messages and connect with people they may know. Inline Reminders and Education

We take the safety of teens very seriously, so they will see an extra reminder before they can share publicly.

When teens choose “Public” in the audience selector, they’ll see a reminder that the post can be seen by anyone, not just people they know, with an option to change the post’s privacy.

And if they choose to continue posting publicly, they will get an additional reminder.